Image by: Rego Korosi
By Victor Averin
Online advertising strategies have changed remarkably in the past year, and it’s arguable, from research to experts who claim that online branded video advertising is leading the change and has become one of the most effective forms of content when it’s imbedded into advertisement.
Branded videos are highly engaging, and worthy of sharing among consumers who have built a keen eye for viral and impactful content.
Interesting Findings From The Social Video Research Lab
Current research accurately estimates around 500,000 shares of online video ads every 24 hours. Those numbers should give you some type of desire or inspiration to create your own branded videos that express your interests/beliefs which revolve around your brand or establishing a channel either on YouTube or another popular video site with your branded videos. Live streaming is also growing.
The new U.S. Social Video Research Lab has done some significant research designed to help brands make a big impact with their videos. The lab provides “comprehensive solutions to aid in online advertising campaigns such as designing social video strategies, social video creation and activation and advanced social video analytics.”
They have found that brand recollection and association increased by 7% with viewers who were recommended a video rather than found the content online through browsing the web. Video enjoyment rose a staggering 14% when the video was recommended compared to web browsing and finding the video.
Three Factors You Should Consider In Your Video Content
The first is the relationship your brand establishes with the viewer. Is the content able to connect on a personal level or establish some common ground?
The second is the value and usefulness of the content. Content should be meaningful and send a clear message to a single individual and be able to spread to large populations.
The third and last factor is emotion. Is your video invoking happiness, sadness, shock, fear, and other emotions to drive people to share the video and reinforce personal feelings and beliefs?
If your video is neutral in emotion, it’s time to re-think and re-innovate. Having considered all of these factors your video should be good enough to share with little effort on your part besides filming/creating the video then uploading it to a popular channel or website.
The First Step In Starting A Social Video
Now that you know powerful branded videos can increase your viewers enjoyment, brand association and recollection, and form some common ground, how can you get started with your own social video? The first step is to look at a good example of a viral, impactful and all around good social video to inspire your own creative idea.
A small New Zealand pizza chain, Hell Pizza, created an interactive video titled, “Interactive Zombie Adventure – Deliver Me To Hell,” where viewers could have an impact on the zombie apocalyptic story line. The video received 9 million views and over 250,000 shares since 2010. That’s 3 million views and 83,000 shares per year. An interesting note: the population of New Zealand is 4.3 million in 2013.